Arbor Day poster contest won by a budding artist
April 26, 2012
Caro means “dear” in Italian. Well, to Shannon Roubicek, Megan Caro fits the name perfectly.
Roubicek, Megan’s teacher at Snoqualmie Elementary School, raves about the artistic talent of the fourth-grader, whose work has been selected as the poster art for the city’s 2013 Arbor Day.
“Megan is one of the most hardworking, dedicated and compassionate students I have ever taught,” Roubicek wrote in an email. “She always gives 110 percent effort in everything that she does and isn’t afraid to use her creative side.”
Contributed Megan Caro poses with her painting, ‘Trees are Terrific in All Shapes and Sizes,’ which will grace the Snoqualmie Arbor Day poster next year. Megan, a fourth-grader at Snoqualmie Elementary School, said her art depicted the variety of trees in the Valley.
Megan fulfilled a yearlong dream of hers just by participating. As a third-grader last year, she was not eligible to participate. This year, she competed and won.
Her watercolor painting, titled “Trees Are Terrific in All Shapes and Sizes,” shows the variety of trees in the Snoqualmie Valley, all under a purplish sky and a setting sun.
Her setting sun can be found behind a row of mountains, the opposite of what we experience in the Valley. Megan shrugs the anomaly off, in the process of scoring one for creative, imaginative people everywhere.
Valley freshman makes honor roll at OSU
April 26, 2012
Shanna Howland, a freshman from North Bend majoring in exercise and sport science, has a spot on the Oregon State University Honor Roll for winter term.
Howland earned a 3.5 grade point average. About 3,338 students earned an average of 3.5 or higher, with 752 students earning straight As.
Students must carry at least 12 graded hours of course work to be included on the honor roll.
Teacher of the month is named
April 26, 2012
Snoqualmie Elementary School teacher Shannon Roubicek was named the March 2012 Macaroni Kid Teacher of the Month.
Macaroni Kid of Issaquah-Snoqualmie picks one teacher every month. The nomination for Roubicek called her a kind, encouraging and even-handed teacher.
“All in all, she is one amazing teacher,” the nomination read, with the word “amazing” in all capital letters.
Roubicek is a fourth-grade teacher at Snoqualmie Elementary.
She will receive a plaque from Issaquah Trophy & Awards, a massage gift certificate from Therapeutic Health in North Bend and a $100 gift certificate to the Woodman Lodge, courtesy of the lodge and the Cascade Team Real Estate Agency.
Claudine Fairchild, a physical therapist at Cascade View Elementary School, won the award in February.
Twin Falls Middle School teacher Kyle Wallace won it in January.
Track and field classic returns
April 26, 2012
By Sebastian Moraga Emmitt Rudd leaps during the long-jump competition at the Mount Si Invitational Meet.
We meet again, at the meet.
After a 23-year hiatus, the Mount Si Invitational Meet returned to life April 21 at Mount Si High School.
Teams from all over the Puget Sound area arrived to celebrate the revival of what once was a staple of the spring athletics calendar in the Snoqualmie Valley.
The hosts did themselves proud, not only with a picturesque day of cloudless sunshine, but by putting on good performances. The girls tied Marysville-Pilchuck for first place with 148 points.
Mount Si turns it around against Lake Washington with 11-5 win
April 26, 2012
The Mount Si High School softball team came back from a three-point deficit to win, 11-5, against Lake Washington High School on April 17.
Both teams scored two runs in the first inning at the Mount Si ball field, and goose eggs in the next three.
The Kangs took the lead with three more runs at the top of the fifth frame, just as rain started falling steadily.
Mount Si High School’s Britney Stevens leads off first base as slugger Mickey Blad gets ready to swing in the April 17 game against Lake Washington High School. The Wildcats won, 11-5.
Lake Washington errors helped the Wildcats put two more runs on the board in the fifth.
Celine Fowler hit a ball that bounced between the Kangs’ pitcher and catcher, and while the two tried to decide who should grab the ball, Fowler was already at first base.
Lake Washington’s shortstop missed Britney Stevens’ single, and Rachael Picchena hit a ball deep to centerfield, which allowed Fowler and Stevens to run across home plate.
The top and bottom of the sixth inning was a game changer for the Wildcats.
Twin Falls hosts its first science fair
April 18, 2012
In science, discoveries don’t just happen in a lab. Sometimes they happen in a bathtub, a kitchen or even near a garbage can.
Just ask sixth-grader Ethan Saur, a student at Twin Falls Middle School, who tried to grow grass with water, milk, cola and soda. His ultimate discovery had little to do with science.
“Now I know Mom will get rid of my soda every time she gets a chance to,” he said.
By Sebastian Moraga Ben Rogers, a fourth-grader at North Bend Elementary School, plays with a pendulum eighth-grader Tanner Thomson built.
To be fair, Saur also discovered that grass does not grow well when you pour anything but H2O on it.
Saur waited four weeks for the grass to grow. He watched as mold grew on the milked-up soil and expanded when Saur poured fizzy soda on it.
Schoolmate Sarah McTier and Brenna McDaniel discovered that their best free throws happen when launched from atop their heads. Josette Vail discovered turning on a light bulb is hard work if you use fruit.
Dozens of other discoveries sat on display April 12 at the first Science Fair at Twin Falls Middle School.
All-girl lineup shows talent at SnoValley Idol Junior finals
April 4, 2012
Photos by Sebastian Moraga McKenna Esteb (from left), Annie Bruckner and Tori Rose, the first-, second-, and third-place finishers at the 2012 SnoValley Idol Junior contest March 31. Fourteen girls competed in the finals of the eight-year-old event.
On a wet night, musical talent reigned inside Mount Si High School on March 30.
The eighth annual SnoValley Idol Junior contest showcased some of the most talented teen and pre-teen singers in the region.
Teacher Joe Dockery is adviser of the year for PNW Key Club
April 4, 2012
At Key Club, they are going bananas over Dockery.
Joe Dockery, the faculty adviser for the Mount Si High School chapter of Key Club, has been named the Key Club Faculty Adviser of the Year for the organization’s Pacific Northwest district.
The Pacific Northwest District spans northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska with thousands of high school chapters of Key Club.
Key Club is the high school version of Kiwanis, the international community service organization. Dockery received the honor at the Pacific Northwest district convention in SeaTac the weekend of April 1.
“That Joe is an exceptional teacher and adviser is actually not surprising to those who know of him,” Dave Humphrey, Kiwanis adviser to the Mount Si High School Key Club wrote in an email. “He has already had many honors bestowed upon him.”
Dockery began working with Humphries in 2007.
Kindergarten classes to put on piggy opus
April 4, 2012
The kindergarten classes of Snoqualmie Elementary School will put on performances of “Three Piggy Opera” April 19.
The morning kindergarten classes’ performance will be at 11 a.m. at the school gymnasium.
The full-day and afternoon kindergarten classes’ performance will be at 2 p.m. in the same venue, and before the children’s schoolmates, according to an email from the school to parents.
Opstad Elementary School has also scheduled a performance of “Three Piggy Opera” for 6 p.m. May 17.
Tina Longwell is 2012 Classified Educator of the Year
March 28, 2012
By Sebastian F. Moraga Tina Longwell and her son Cody, an Opstad Elementary alum. Longwell, secretary at Opstad, received the 2012 Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation’s Classified Educator of the Year award. Longwell started her work at Opstad as a volunteer during her days off from a dental office while her son attended the school.
For eight hours a day, Tina Longwell makes the octomom look like an amateur.
Most every weekday morning, Longwell’s family grows the way raindrops fall on a tree in North Bend. By the hundreds.
“I kind of feel like I am a mom to 536 kids, from 9:05 to 3:25,” the Opstad Elementary School secretary said, and to hear her tell it, she would not have it any other way.
